The growth of the Internet has brought a corresponding increase in the number and variety of computing devices being employed to communicate over the Internet. Today's computing devices vary from desktop computers with a large variety of features and capabilities, to mobile devices, such as pagers, cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and the like, with lesser features and/or capabilities. Many of these computing devices may, however, provide for what is known a text messages. Text messaging includes such communication protocols as Short Message Service (SMS) for providing connectionless transfers of limited size messages between networked computing devices. SMS messages may be cell broadcast services which are periodically delivered short message to a pre-defined set of computing devices in a given area, or point-to-point services which include short messages sent to a specific user. The SMS protocol is described in more detail in International Standard ISO/IEC 21989, as well as such documents as Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM) 03.38 and 04.11.
With the large usage of text messaging there has been a flurry of companies launching services that seek to leverage its popularity. Many of these companies, however, are struggling with developing additional services that will also build customer loyalty. Therefore, it is with respect to these considerations and others that the present invention has been made.